November 25, 2025 • 9 mins
Aviation Expert has information and tips as you head to the airport to get out of town for the holiday weekend
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Not great weather.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
For get the busiest travel really the busiest travel week
of the year. Let's go over to the Legacy Retirement
Group dot com phone line and say good morning to
Jay Ratliffe, our aviation expert.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
This is a pretty hectic week, Jay, good morning.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
It is the week as far as you don't have
a busier travel week than this one. Because historically the
busiest travel day of the year is the Sunday after Thanksgiving.
The second busiest travel day of the year tends to
be the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. So within a five day
period of time, you have two of the year's busiest
travel days. So obviously you have that plus everything else
(00:37):
is crammed into this week, and it's going to be
you know, it's one of the reasons the airlines have
all hands on deck and we're hoping for good weather,
no technical issues with any of the airline computer systems,
good weather, and everything working as it's supposed to. Because
if you start seeing a series of flights seriously delayed
or canceled, with as full as a lot of these
flights are, you've got nowhere to put people. You got
(00:59):
ten two hundred people that canceled at a given city,
get two thousand people, we're gonna put them because you've
got three seats on this flight, two seats here and
one this afternoon. It's just yeah, so that's why we
want everything to be boring and routine and just you
know as we go through and in this really Monday
is when it all ends, because that's the spillover day
(01:21):
for people that wanted to fly Sunday couldn't because the
flights are full and they're traveling home on Monday.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
So is this week busier?
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Jay, because it's just so compact versus you look at
the Christmas holiday. I mean, people start checking out, you know,
by the fifteenth of the month, and then travel is
spread out over several days or weeks versus this week.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
The perfect call, And that's exactly the reason for it,
because when you've got you know, half a month from
the middle of December really until after the first of
the year, you've got people that are traveling intermittently at
different times. You have everybody trying to get to you grandma's
house at one time.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
Yeah, it becomes an issue where everybody's trying to fly
at once and for people that you know, maybe for
the last second they said, Jay, I gotta fly. The
airlines still have some decent and that I'm putting that
in quotes affairs Thanksgiving morning on the twenty seventh, coming
back to the morning of the twenty ninth or twenty
ninth Thursday to Saturday. Other than that, I mean most
(02:19):
everything's full and any fares are going to be extremely high.
Obviously given the fact that the demand is up. Airlines
charged more for airline tickets this week because the demand
is there. And then obviously after Monday Tuesday, they dropped
down for the first couple of weeks of December and
then kind of ratchet it back up as we approached
the final half month of the year, which is also
(02:41):
a you know holiday travel time.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
Aviation expert Jay Ratlift joining me. You can find him
at Jratlift dot com. It's a great site if you're
into this. So are we all fully staffed at the
airports now everyone's back from the shutdown.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
I saw a story air traffic controllers.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
There was this idea of a ten thousand dollars or
proposed bonus for the air traffic controllers who stayed on
the job during the shutdown did not you know, did
not call off sick. Didn't you know, wine or cry
stayed working. And there are some of them that are
calling the ten thousand dollars bonus on insult.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
Is that right?
Speaker 3 (03:17):
Yeah? Yeah, they said a women pilots get you know,
sign on bonuses of one hundred thousand dollars. Okay, yeah,
I get that. Insurgeons get sign on bonuses too, But
I don't know that I've exactly put the air traffic
controllers in that same category. But I understand why they're
saying it. The men and women that are air traffic
(03:37):
controllers right now have not just had to deal with
the shutdown, they've had to deal with being understaff for
the last ten years plus, and a lot of times
you laugh at the idea of a five day work
week because for them at six and seven and you
have this shortage of three thousand plus air traffic controllers
in the country right now. So the shutdown only made
(03:58):
it worse because a lot of called in sick to
go work somewhere where they could get paid. The problem
is they're saying that, you know, we're as important of
a cog in the wheel, if you will, as any
of these other players, and we should be getting something
more than that. The way I was raised, if somebody
gives me a thank you, I'm not going to look
(04:19):
at them and say, how dare you give me this right?
I'm going to say thank you very much and go
cash it as quickly as I can. But you know,
in this situation, they really feel like they're being you know,
maybe taken advantage of or taken for granted, I think
probably a better term, but recognize Donald Trump has decided
(04:40):
that this is a priority for his administration to get
the air traffic controllers fully staffed where they can actually
work a four and five day work week if that's
what they want, versus being forced into this exhaustive schedule
that they have. And of course this week, when you
have some people being exhausted, tend to be overworked, and
you've got to busy holiday travel time, it adds only
(05:03):
more pressure onto that. And that's one of the reasons
that they feel like, yeah, ten thousand dollars, it may
be nice, but it's nowhere near what we've had to
deal with, not only through the pandemic, but going back
for the last whatever.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
And it's a lot like.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
With when you have pilots and other airline members that,
like Spirit did with some of their pilots and flight
attendants that recently agreed to take a pay cup and
pay and benefits to try to help the airline survive.
The thought is on the other side of that, the
airline would reward them back with a very nice thank
you for raises and things of this nature to kind
(05:36):
of help them get through that rough time. Air traffic
controllers are just looking for something like that. But there's
no quick fix. When you're hired. It takes five years
in essence to go from being a new hire to
working on your own as an air traffic controller. And
we only have so many facilities, so many trainers. You
can't flip a switch and then boom, triple the number
of people we're training. We just aren't prepared for that.
(05:58):
But we're moving in that direction. And I hope before
Donald Trump leaves office that we have a vastly improved
air traffic control system technology wise, and air traffic controllers.
That funnel that's going to be feeding the air traffic
control centers around the country is spewing out maybe thirty
percent more people so that we can get caught up
and finally, you know, get these people back to a
(06:20):
normal schedule.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
Jay, what does an experienced air traffic controller make someone
who you know has achieved the five year threshold, Maybe
they're on their six or seventh year, and I would
hope they are well into the six figures.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
Oh yeah, I mean, well, they could go anywhere from
let's say eighty five thousand to one hundred and forty
five hundred and fifty thousand. You throw in some overtime
in things of this nature, and I mean they're upper
of one hundred and one hundred and ninety thousand dollars,
but you're exhausted. I mean it's like you don't have life.
And you talk to a lot of those people, they say, yeah,
the pay is great, but when you have the aggravation,
(06:54):
And that's one of the things coming out of the
pandemic that really was a shift in our society. Yet
a lot of people say, I used to work two
jobs and had a really nice lifestyle. I'm working one
and I'm cutting back because I want my quality of
life to be more relaxed and something I can actually enjoy.
Because they've got a taste of it, and that means
more to me than money, And that's the same thing
(07:15):
with a lot of these individuals. They're more interested in
the quality of life then. I mean, you can imagine
going a month where you've had three days off or
four days and it just it really creates a lot
of problems with them. And I know that that works
on you. And again you're dealing not with the state
of the art technology for that the FA has right,
You've got air traffic control centers at leak, you have
(07:37):
these old computer systems. You've got things you hope work
the way they're supposed to, and you're supposed to hold
it all together using stuff that was you know, developed
and implemented and installed last century. It's quite the challenge
for these men and women, and I totally get it,
but I do not appreciate. You know, they're given something
that they weren't supposed to get and it's not enough.
(08:00):
I'm sorry. And when I read a lot of these reports,
I'm sorry. I had to look at this as politically
driven in some regards. I had to ask myself, Okay,
if this were President Biden, that was giving a ten
thousand dollars, But in the same set of circumstances, would
these exact same people be complaining as they would be
(08:20):
for because I think for a lot of them, my friend,
is just a matter of, Hey, this is my opportunity
to complain about Donald Trump, Okay, and that's what they're
going to do. Now. I'm not saying that's the majority,
but I'm certainly seeing a lot of evidence of that.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
The keyword is bonus. Bonus is something that is unexpected.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
Right. They could very easily have said, hey, welcome back
to the.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
Job, and you're going to continue to get paid what
you've always gotten paid. The fact that they said, you know,
here's ten thousand dollars extra, thank you for being loyal
as you said you were raised, right, I was raised
the same way.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
You say thank you, you cash the check and you move on.
Speaker 3 (08:53):
Uh this week, say jay, But they're only going to
get like six or seven thousand dollars that after tax.
My response was like five six seconds of silence. And
you know that's when everything goes crazy, because it's like
and there's a point and.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
Yeah, it's seven grand he didn't have yesterday. It's a
seven grand he didn't have yesterday. All right, my man,
I'll let you fly. Are we dealing with any hub delays?
This morning we do have.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
I mean, this is an interesting weather week, so it
could be we could be looking at some delays.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
We are. In fact, today we're already seeing some issues
in Atlanta and Detroit. Detroit's really getting hammered with a
lot of rain, wind, limited visibility in Atlanta. Those are
the two issues. Now as the day progresses, Minneapolis is
going to get in on it, and then certainly we're
going to be seeing some things towards the northeast. And
I'm hoping the system moves fast because as busy as
(09:44):
we talked about tomorrow being a lot of this stuff
is going to be camped out over the Northeast, which
is already an issue anyways on a good weather day.
So yeah, I'm really hoping this stuff picks up some
speed and gets out of the way so it's not
a problem tomorrow
Not great weather.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
For get the busiest travel really the busiest travel week
of the year. Let's go over to the Legacy Retirement
Group dot com phone line and say good morning to
Jay Ratliffe, our aviation expert.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
This is a pretty hectic week, Jay, good morning.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
It is the week as far as you don't have
a busier travel week than this one. Because historically the
busiest travel day of the year is the Sunday after Thanksgiving.
The second busiest travel day of the year tends to
be the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. So within a five day
period of time, you have two of the year's busiest
travel days. So obviously you have that plus everything else
(00:37):
is crammed into this week, and it's going to be
you know, it's one of the reasons the airlines have
all hands on deck and we're hoping for good weather,
no technical issues with any of the airline computer systems,
good weather, and everything working as it's supposed to. Because
if you start seeing a series of flights seriously delayed
or canceled, with as full as a lot of these
flights are, you've got nowhere to put people. You got
(00:59):
ten two hundred people that canceled at a given city,
get two thousand people, we're gonna put them because you've
got three seats on this flight, two seats here and
one this afternoon. It's just yeah, so that's why we
want everything to be boring and routine and just you
know as we go through and in this really Monday
is when it all ends, because that's the spillover day
(01:21):
for people that wanted to fly Sunday couldn't because the
flights are full and they're traveling home on Monday.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
So is this week busier?
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Jay, because it's just so compact versus you look at
the Christmas holiday. I mean, people start checking out, you know,
by the fifteenth of the month, and then travel is
spread out over several days or weeks versus this week.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
The perfect call, And that's exactly the reason for it,
because when you've got you know, half a month from
the middle of December really until after the first of
the year, you've got people that are traveling intermittently at
different times. You have everybody trying to get to you grandma's
house at one time.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
Yeah, it becomes an issue where everybody's trying to fly
at once and for people that you know, maybe for
the last second they said, Jay, I gotta fly. The
airlines still have some decent and that I'm putting that
in quotes affairs Thanksgiving morning on the twenty seventh, coming
back to the morning of the twenty ninth or twenty
ninth Thursday to Saturday. Other than that, I mean most
(02:19):
everything's full and any fares are going to be extremely high.
Obviously given the fact that the demand is up. Airlines
charged more for airline tickets this week because the demand
is there. And then obviously after Monday Tuesday, they dropped
down for the first couple of weeks of December and
then kind of ratchet it back up as we approached
the final half month of the year, which is also
(02:41):
a you know holiday travel time.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
Aviation expert Jay Ratlift joining me. You can find him
at Jratlift dot com. It's a great site if you're
into this. So are we all fully staffed at the
airports now everyone's back from the shutdown.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
I saw a story air traffic controllers.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
There was this idea of a ten thousand dollars or
proposed bonus for the air traffic controllers who stayed on
the job during the shutdown did not you know, did
not call off sick. Didn't you know, wine or cry
stayed working. And there are some of them that are
calling the ten thousand dollars bonus on insult.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
Is that right?
Speaker 3 (03:17):
Yeah? Yeah, they said a women pilots get you know,
sign on bonuses of one hundred thousand dollars. Okay, yeah,
I get that. Insurgeons get sign on bonuses too, But
I don't know that I've exactly put the air traffic
controllers in that same category. But I understand why they're
saying it. The men and women that are air traffic
(03:37):
controllers right now have not just had to deal with
the shutdown, they've had to deal with being understaff for
the last ten years plus, and a lot of times
you laugh at the idea of a five day work
week because for them at six and seven and you
have this shortage of three thousand plus air traffic controllers
in the country right now. So the shutdown only made
(03:58):
it worse because a lot of called in sick to
go work somewhere where they could get paid. The problem
is they're saying that, you know, we're as important of
a cog in the wheel, if you will, as any
of these other players, and we should be getting something
more than that. The way I was raised, if somebody
gives me a thank you, I'm not going to look
(04:19):
at them and say, how dare you give me this right?
I'm going to say thank you very much and go
cash it as quickly as I can. But you know,
in this situation, they really feel like they're being you know,
maybe taken advantage of or taken for granted, I think
probably a better term, but recognize Donald Trump has decided
(04:40):
that this is a priority for his administration to get
the air traffic controllers fully staffed where they can actually
work a four and five day work week if that's
what they want, versus being forced into this exhaustive schedule
that they have. And of course this week, when you
have some people being exhausted, tend to be overworked, and
you've got to busy holiday travel time, it adds only
(05:03):
more pressure onto that. And that's one of the reasons
that they feel like, yeah, ten thousand dollars, it may
be nice, but it's nowhere near what we've had to
deal with, not only through the pandemic, but going back
for the last whatever.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
And it's a lot like.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
With when you have pilots and other airline members that,
like Spirit did with some of their pilots and flight
attendants that recently agreed to take a pay cup and
pay and benefits to try to help the airline survive.
The thought is on the other side of that, the
airline would reward them back with a very nice thank
you for raises and things of this nature to kind
(05:36):
of help them get through that rough time. Air traffic
controllers are just looking for something like that. But there's
no quick fix. When you're hired. It takes five years
in essence to go from being a new hire to
working on your own as an air traffic controller. And
we only have so many facilities, so many trainers. You
can't flip a switch and then boom, triple the number
of people we're training. We just aren't prepared for that.
(05:58):
But we're moving in that direction. And I hope before
Donald Trump leaves office that we have a vastly improved
air traffic control system technology wise, and air traffic controllers.
That funnel that's going to be feeding the air traffic
control centers around the country is spewing out maybe thirty
percent more people so that we can get caught up
and finally, you know, get these people back to a
(06:20):
normal schedule.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
Jay, what does an experienced air traffic controller make someone
who you know has achieved the five year threshold, Maybe
they're on their six or seventh year, and I would
hope they are well into the six figures.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
Oh yeah, I mean, well, they could go anywhere from
let's say eighty five thousand to one hundred and forty
five hundred and fifty thousand. You throw in some overtime
in things of this nature, and I mean they're upper
of one hundred and one hundred and ninety thousand dollars,
but you're exhausted. I mean it's like you don't have life.
And you talk to a lot of those people, they say, yeah,
the pay is great, but when you have the aggravation,
(06:54):
And that's one of the things coming out of the
pandemic that really was a shift in our society. Yet
a lot of people say, I used to work two
jobs and had a really nice lifestyle. I'm working one
and I'm cutting back because I want my quality of
life to be more relaxed and something I can actually enjoy.
Because they've got a taste of it, and that means
more to me than money, And that's the same thing
(07:15):
with a lot of these individuals. They're more interested in
the quality of life then. I mean, you can imagine
going a month where you've had three days off or
four days and it just it really creates a lot
of problems with them. And I know that that works
on you. And again you're dealing not with the state
of the art technology for that the FA has right,
You've got air traffic control centers at leak, you have
(07:37):
these old computer systems. You've got things you hope work
the way they're supposed to, and you're supposed to hold
it all together using stuff that was you know, developed
and implemented and installed last century. It's quite the challenge
for these men and women, and I totally get it,
but I do not appreciate. You know, they're given something
that they weren't supposed to get and it's not enough.
(08:00):
I'm sorry. And when I read a lot of these reports,
I'm sorry. I had to look at this as politically
driven in some regards. I had to ask myself, Okay,
if this were President Biden, that was giving a ten
thousand dollars, But in the same set of circumstances, would
these exact same people be complaining as they would be
(08:20):
for because I think for a lot of them, my friend,
is just a matter of, Hey, this is my opportunity
to complain about Donald Trump, Okay, and that's what they're
going to do. Now. I'm not saying that's the majority,
but I'm certainly seeing a lot of evidence of that.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
The keyword is bonus. Bonus is something that is unexpected.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
Right. They could very easily have said, hey, welcome back
to the.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
Job, and you're going to continue to get paid what
you've always gotten paid. The fact that they said, you know,
here's ten thousand dollars extra, thank you for being loyal
as you said you were raised, right, I was raised
the same way.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
You say thank you, you cash the check and you move on.
Speaker 3 (08:53):
Uh this week, say jay, But they're only going to
get like six or seven thousand dollars that after tax.
My response was like five six seconds of silence. And
you know that's when everything goes crazy, because it's like
and there's a point and.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
Yeah, it's seven grand he didn't have yesterday. It's a
seven grand he didn't have yesterday. All right, my man,
I'll let you fly. Are we dealing with any hub delays?
This morning we do have.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
I mean, this is an interesting weather week, so it
could be we could be looking at some delays.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
We are. In fact, today we're already seeing some issues
in Atlanta and Detroit. Detroit's really getting hammered with a
lot of rain, wind, limited visibility in Atlanta. Those are
the two issues. Now as the day progresses, Minneapolis is
going to get in on it, and then certainly we're
going to be seeing some things towards the northeast. And
I'm hoping the system moves fast because as busy as
(09:44):
we talked about tomorrow being a lot of this stuff
is going to be camped out over the Northeast, which
is already an issue anyways on a good weather day.
So yeah, I'm really hoping this stuff picks up some
speed and gets out of the way so it's not
a problem tomorrow
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